Lost in My Head: Mental Vacation Hoarding
It’s Emily again, and I’ve been thinking, which is always a dangerous situation…
Let’s say you knock on someone’s door. It’s a glossy red door, very inviting. Knock, knock, knock. Wait. Footsteps. The door opens but your anticipation and smile drop into whatever your horrified face looks like because, beyond that attractive, inviting front door, lies a veritable canyonland of boxes, stacks, piles, and bins. No longer are you eager to enter that house because who knows what you might encounter? You might suffocate in there! Get hopelessly lost! Who knows what you might find! Or not find.
Yeah, well…welcome to the inside of my head. It has this lovely, glossy red door with a silver lion head knocker and is flanked by vibrant, luscious foliage. There’s even a lovely brick pathway that leads right to the door, complete with frilly moss growing in all the perfectly designed cracks. There’s a welcome mat I wove myself. If good dreams had an entrance, this would be it. But then…the door opens and you’re inside my brain.
Warning: You will get lost. I usually am.
But this is my mind and we’ve been together for quite some time, so I have a few well-worn trails. One of my favorite and most scenic routes is right in the front. Take a slight right, then turn left and you’ll be solidly in my Vacation Hoarder section.
Here’s an inventory of what’s in this expansive area of my head:
1. The next two years of fully planned and semi-planned trips.
2. Vacations and trips vying for attention, yelling, waving their arms, flattering me, bribing me to pick them next.
3. Lists of vacations and trips near, far, long, short, exotic, local, outside, inside, adventurous, low key
Curious? Good, and you’ll be happy to know I know exactly where everything is in this place even if it seems impossible. I mean, how perfectly hoard-able are vacations?! They take up no physical space, just most of my mental space.
Here are a few of the vacations you’ll find in the stacks, piles, boxes, and bins:
Texas Path of Totality road trip
Status: planned, scheduled
France/Israel/Jordan
Status: planned, scheduled
Disneyland
Status: annual tradition, always planned, always scheduled
Philippines
Status: semi-planned
Northeastern Canada road trip (5 provinces!)
Status: planned
London to Scotland by train
Status: semi-planned
Southern France
Status: outlined
Kenya safari
Status: moved to upper third of the stack
Turkey
Status: moved to top three
Denmark and Sweden
Status: waiting patiently
Azores
Status: quietly waiting
Viking river cruise
Status: slated for sometime in the next ten years
St. James Way
Status: looking at options
Camino del Norte
Status: looking at options, gathering interest
Hadrian’s Wall
Status: planning in progress
Great Lakes Road trip
Status: planned
Southern states road trip
Status: planned
Ride the Rail Trail across America
Status: waiting for trail completion
Library of Congress
Status: talked about it
Boca del Toros, Panama
Status: planning in progress
Galapagos
Status: Exploration phase
Bermuda
Status: watching airfare
French Guyana
Status: exploration phase
Australia/New Zealand
Status: exploration phase
It’s pretty great in there, yeah? Take your time, look around, but whatever you do, don’t turn right at the end of the trail. That leads to my Writing mental neighborhood and it’s a mess in there. You’ll be climbing all over story fragments and through rabbit holes and trekking across unedited sentences. Let me do some clean up and I’ll invite you back another time. If you dare.